Tuesday, 24 December 2013

while the book is still at 50,000 words, there are two chapters that have been 'introduced' into the narrative and given their 'chaptorial' place withing the 40-chapter index but are stubbornly resisting being written.

It's a 'me' thing, I've just been ... reluctant to lay the brickwork, point the gaps.

Both chapters deal with The Mighty Quins: the eponymous chapter is a 'four years ago' chapter showing how the quins became involved in the LIBERATOR narrative, the other chapter Safari (which comes directly before it) shows how these children are hunted down for their usefulness by the Black Pentagon leading towards the latter part of the book.

New titles, headings and positions for you, eh? Excited?

DECEMBER 25th AFTERNOON UPDATE: hmm, well, that didn't go 'exactly' as I 'might have planned' but the two missing chapters (mentioned above) have been written over the course of a single play through of Riuchi Sakamoto's THREE. I'm wondering if I can even write LIBERATOR without having his music playing in the background. It's like some sort of intellectuo-narrative free-forming talisman that my flying fingers can't do without. This book.

Running total: currently 54,000 words. And I don't feel I'm any closer to 'really' understanding how LIBERATOR got here or where it might go during its pre-amble towards the final chapter(s) which have already been written out. So many loose ends right now, and I'm not convinced it's worth being too tidy about how many of them are tied off. A little blood is a good thing in an action adventure, right? Except this shit is 'narrative blood' and that might erk the reader ... like I care.

DECEMBER 29th UPDATE: and having crashed headlong into a bit of a dead end, I popped out the other side within Cloud City. A crackin' scene, lots of revelations. Lots of tied off ends. Lots of new narrative to explore. 58,000 words is the current running total. 10,000 or so to go, I guess. Where to start REAPER FPS3. Who knows?

Thursday, 12 December 2013

A couple of the later chapters are still to type in from notebook, but I'm confident they'll amount to about 2,000 words per chapter.

I've gone back in and ADDED two earlier chapters #2 and #3 so that the whole Free Planet world (four years after Custodian) is fully fleshed out, so that the reader has no misconceptions that this really is a TOTALLY DIFFERENT world to the one the Corporations nearly ruined.

Kinda really enjoying this book still; as you can see from the racing word count, it's becoming quite an obsession.

TEN DAYS LATER UPDATE: this morning, I added another two chapters, slotted them into positions 3 and 4 in the 40-chapter index. Just to add another layer of understanding (for me as much as) for the reader. This way we both get to understand what's gone on, what's about to happen, and why I'll stab that back of both of us with LIBERATOR FPS book #2 revelations. The book's anywhere near 50,000 words or so (I haven't been keeping track over the last few hours), or it will be once I fold in that 'still not typed in' stuff. I have the notebooks open in front of me for the 'afternoon sessions'.

EVENING UPDATE: yeah, final tally came to one hundred and twenty words under 50,000 at the end of today's manic session. There are still a couple chapters that need content, so it's technically over that Magic 50 already. Just gotta type in the rest.

I'm really at my most Hertzan Chimera-like this novel, my most Loki-like, of dirty old bastardness. And lovin' the gruesome trip, man.

Sunday, 8 December 2013

just hammered through the 35,500 words first-draft mark of Liberator (free planet novel #2) and I'm now MORE CONVINCED THAN EVER where this trilogy's going and how and when and why it'll suicidally crashland into Planet #3, Reaper in 2015.

Oh, yes, and that is a first look at the new cover design for LIBERATOR: free planet #2 (this cover's far more relevant to the extreme horror content of the book than the stand-in design that was 'borrowing' a non-copyright image from off the net).

I'm not necessarily a big fan of draggin shit out for the sake of a series, so I've upgraded one or two ideas from Book 3 to happen in Book 2 ... I did this not because I've run out of ideas (yet) for Liberator FP2 but because I have ADDITIONAL ideas for Reaper FP3, and it'll make loads more sense when you read what I did and why, some years later when I reveal the randomness of my writing process, the Channeling of Narrative via Character.